Funding Examples & Testimonials

The trust has a long history of supporting young people and organisations within the parish. To give an idea of what can be achieved with the funding here are some examples from recent years.

  • Callum Ward - Level 2 Plumbing and Heating

To individuals:

The Thomas Williams Education Foundation was such a useful source of support. The application was straight forward and simple and the support immeasurable. The money that I received equated over 100 hours of paid work, that’s about two and a half weeks of work a year that I did not need to do. As a student money is tight, most students worry about making sure they have enough to fund their experience. These two and a half weeks allowed me to focus more on my education and also time resting to make sure I could always work my best. The extra time that I was able to spend studying meant that I could achieve the grade that I wanted, take on additional training, and spend time doing extra reading that meant I could further my skills.
Post graduation I felt much more confidence than my peers as I was able to spend time researching. This may not seem a lot, but when you are a student it helps maintain your work/life balance, and make the course more enjoyable.

I am now studying again full time at the university of Warwick medical school. I am studying on the post-graduate programme. The fund really helped develop my learning by reducing the stress of my first degree and I truly feel influence my experience, and encouraged my passion. I often speak (humbly) of the grant that I received and share how fortunate I have been.

Adam Rhodes BSC (Hons) Mental Health Nursing, First Class

I’m very thankful for the support provided by the TWEF during my studies at The University of Exeter. It was so helpful to take the pressure off, contributing to living expense and getting required course material. Allowing me to focus on my studies more.

Callum Ward Level 2 Plumbing and Heating

By applying for the Thomas Williams Educational Foundation and being accepted, I was able to buy some basic hand tools. The hand tools such as spanner’s and other plumbing specific ones had helped me to learn on the job with my apprenticeship and get my qualification at college. I am very grateful for the Trust to have accepted me to help with a some sort start to my career.

Josh Lightfoot Bachelor In Mechanical Engineering

The Thomas Williams Education foundation was of excellent use to me during my time at university. The generous grants which I received assisted with my travelling costs, living costs and helped me buy a large amount of studying material at the beginning of each semester. I am extremely grateful to the Thomas Williams trust and advocate for them greatly.

Richard West Bsc accounting & finance – about to start 3rd year

The Trust has helped me out a lot to be able to use the grant for resources which has allowed me to train and develop physically, mentally and knowledgeable within football at a high level.

Zac Green BTEC Level 3 extended diploma in sports

Thomas Williams Educational Foundation has helped me throughout my degree but also aided me to go on a placement year to carry out coral reef conservation and marine park maintenance on the island of St Eustatius in the Caribbean.

Alex Moore BSc Environmental Science

To organisations:

“Bere Regis Swimming Club has for many years benefitted from generous grants from the Williams Trust . This has helped the club to grow and flourish with around 160 members on roll today. We have been very grateful for the trust’s support as it has enabled us to buy new equipment and train new teachers. Training qualified swimming teachers has always been the lifeblood of a club like ours. We are very much a voluntary, community led, learn to swim club with the aim to take children from complete beginner to being confident and at home in the water. This is surely a life skill worth encouraging and as we live near the coast, an important safety issue. Every child should learn to swim and with the William’s Trust support and encouragement, we have been able to achieve this goal over 40 years. Thank you  Williams Trust for all your continuing support and encouragement ”

Bob Holman, Chairman Bere Regis Swimming Club

Over the past few years the Thomas Williams Educational Foundation Trust (TWEFT) has made a number of grants to Bere Regis Scout Group.  These grants have taken two main forms, firstly to enable purchase of much needed equipment and secondly to help children from less well-off families to enjoy their scouting to the full.

Scout Groups need equipment, particularly for camping and outdoor activities; this tends to be expensive.  Bere Regis Scout Group is basically a village group with a few members from surrounding villages.  Over the past few years we have increased our numbers (up 25% in six years) which has put more demands on our equipment; in addition scouting is open to both boys and girls (Bere Regis is roughly 50% girls!).  As well as increasing our stock we need to replace worn out equipment.  With the support of TWEFT we have been able to purchase several items to support our camping activities.

For example, we use a large mess-tent for central cooking and stores.  With the growing numbers attending camp we required something larger and with the support of TWEFT we purchased a new central section to enlarge the existing one.  These pictures show the extended mess-tent in use.  This is used for scout week-long summer camps as well as weekend family and other camps involving the whole group.

With the increasing number of scouts we also need more tents and equipment for camping generally.  On summer camp, scouts cook many of their own meals in their patrols (5 or 6 children in each).  They prepare the food and eat in dining shelters and the picture shows one of two new dining shelters, purchased by a grant from TWEFT, in use at camp in summer 2009.

These are just a few of the items we’ve been able to purchase with the help of TWEFT.

Scout Groups generally have a policy to offer scouting to everyone regardless of their ability to pay!  To this end Bere Regis Scout Group offers reduced subscriptions and activity fees to children whose family might find it difficult to pay.  Recently TWEFT awarded the Group a grant to help allay some of these costs.  This has been and will be used to ensure that no child in Bere Regis is excluded from the group due to inability to pay.

Thus TWEFT has enormously assisted Bere Regis Scout Group to continue to offer high quality scouting and to increase in size with confidence.

Chris Gall, Bere Regis Scout Leader